The past 18 months have brought massive change to virtually every workplace in the global economy, whether through significant workload increase, business shutdown and associated loss of employment or, as has been the case for many office-based roles, an overnight shift to working from home, with meetings taking place by videoconference and little if any face-to-face contact between workers and management for long periods.
As business leaders ponder how to respond to the challenges presented post-pandemic, they should take time to consider how to adapt the firm’s existing risk mitigation frameworks to whatever new working model is ultimately agreed upon. In many cases, too little attention is being given to associated compliance issues, which may lead in time to poorly performing systems and controls and the increased possibility of compliance failings and, in the worst cases, action being taken by enforcement agencies.
Accordingly, we consider that the development of new working practices should involve consideration of the associated behavioural risks and ways to mitigate these as far as possible with systems and controls which are adapted to the new ways of working. Perhaps more than ever before, it will also be important to undertake regular reviews of the effectiveness of new approaches and to ensure that workers understand the compliance aspects of new working arrangements through effective training.